Broken Dreams
by SireesAnwar
Summary: Rhade thinks about what his life has become in the Seefra system.


**Broken Dreams**

Alone. I'm all alone. Sure Beka and Dylan are sitting across from the table from me talking about fixing up Andromeda but I'm really alone. They both have something to look forward to. I, on the other hand, have nothing to return to.

I walk this lonely road of hopelessness. It winds through my life with no destination to speak of. This road, this life is my home now and I try to accept it but it is so empty I find my self sinking into a bottomless pit of bad liquor and loose women. All dreams once held close to my powerful beating heart, broken the moment I awoke on this god forsaken rock with the knowledge all that I loved was dead to me.

When everyone else in the city turns in for the night I leave this bar and walk through the streets. I walk alone with only my shadow as company unless I've stopped to find the comfort that does little to expel the demons that haunt me. My heart doesn't race at the sight of these women. Nothing makes my heart beat like it used to. I have no desire to live but still I keep going.

Somewhere in the back of my mind, as I watch my latest conquest put on her cloths and tell me to call on her again before she leaves, I know the man I was is still there. He would stand by his captain and face the enemy head on. Part of me still wishes to be that man while the rest of me knows he's dead. Still I pretend from time to time I am that man and on most occasions I disappoint because he is gone. I am just the empty shell of him.

That woman, whose name I never caught kisses me on the cheek and tells me she would love to do it again. Only if I run out of women. It is like a circle. I go through all that I can and then start over. Why? Because I don't care about the women I encounter and part of them believe I do. I let them believe this fact because I'm selfish and I need something besides my pulse to know that I'm alive.

There is the every once in a while problem that arises. And when that happens, Dylan comes looking for me. He wants my muscle to help them work things out and ultimately rid themselves of this deplorable system. Why doesn't he understand I don't care? I have nothing to return to.

Upon my return, I will be imprisoned for treason only to spend the rest of my life, as short as it will be, in a cell, sober to the pain of loosing my wife, my children and my Louisa. I have nothing and yet Dylan and Beka sit across from me joyfully discussing what their latest scheme will achieve on the road home.

This is the same road that led us here and has a sign clearly marked "one way." This is why I find the need to slip further from consciousness and deeper into the cup I turn leisurely in my hand. The more they speak of going home the worse it gets and they don't really understand everything I feel. No, they assume I don't feel. They assume a Nietzschean without any of his own race will simply self-destruct rather than strive.

If this were the case; if I were simply the only one of my race trapped here, then I could survive. I could live here while still wanting to return to the universe I knew, but it isn't that simple. Returning means facing what I've lost and seeing the graves of those I love.

Have you ever wondered what happens to a Nietzschean when his entire family dies? Some do go on. Some gather up the wounds within and bandage them to the point where they can find someone else to make a family with. I could do this if I so desired. But this isn't me. Some Nietzscheans, myself included would rather lay down and die knowing their family, the thing they hold most precious, was gone. I am straddling a line between the two. I feel compelled to keep going, but I am slowly poisoning myself and I spread my genetic material all over the planet. Why? Because I have no one left to disgrace.

Someone once described a Nietzschean as being fierce in his loyalty or betrayal. We are extremes. I am no different. I am Nietzschean. I can't have my family so I spread the chance that I could as far as possible knowing it is highly unlikely I will ever have what I once loved.

Trance. She's staring at me funny as though she is reading my mind and soul. Sometimes I think she really is, especially when she says things that reflect what I'm thinking. Sometimes I want to strangle her with my bare hands, like when she told me she saw my children bonding with everyone but me. She's a sun; a source of life and yet she talk about the dead like they are waiting. What could the dead be waiting for but to claim another? I'm not ready to join the dead, even if I already feel dead.

Dylan and Beka have left me to wallow in my drink and Harper has brought me another. He's stopped gripping about the bill, but I know someday I will have to pay him; yet another thing to keep me going. I can not leave a bill unpaid. It is dishonorable, just as drinking and bedding woman for no other reason but pleasure, but those I will live with. The bill I will not. It is supremely in my control and so I will address it.

Trance is still staring at me and she had now taken a seat across from me at my table. Why she thinks staring at me will make anything better I don't know. She unnerves me when she gets quiet. You always know she's analyzing you and you are coming up wanting.

I have many short comings. Despite my argument of perfection to Dylan, I know I'm far from it now. Maybe someday it will concern me again but until then I will tip my glass to the golden woman and stumble down the street, just me and my shadow, back to my room where only my shallow empty heart will keep me company, at least tonight. _Here's to my broken dreams.

* * *

**A/N:** Wrote after listening to the song Boulevard of Broken Dreams by Green Day. You should buy the song._


End file.
